SU alumna participates in largest museum documentation effort ever
By CODIE EASH| The Slate
Shippensburg native Katie McGowan graduated from SU in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in history, and from Penn State-Harrisburg in 2013 with a master’s degree in American Studies. Now, she finds herself at the State Museum of Pennsylvania, at the center of an enormous effort to inventory nearly 4 million artifacts currently owned by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission (PHMC).
The Collection Advancement Project (CAP) began in 2010, and has the distinction of being the largest-ever effort of its kind, not just at the State Museum, but anywhere.
“It's a huge undertaking that has never successfully been implemented anywhere to this scale before,” said McGowan, whose primary focus is in the Community and Domestic Life Collection (CDL), which is state’s largest with approximately 150,000 artifacts, mostly including clothing and appliances.
According to the CAP Abstract, the “initiative will establish better intellectual and physical control and improve access to this nationally significant collection while making related information more accurate, engaging, and widely available to diverse audiences of researchers, the public, Museum visitors, and students of all ages.”
McGowan said the CAP is an effort to match paper records to items contained in storage areas, so that the museum can prove it has a hold on the contents of its collection.
“That’s important because you want to know what you have and what you say you do, because a lot of times people will come to you and say, ‘So-and-so donated this to the museum, and I want to see it. Can you find it for me?’” she said. “And if you don’t have a very good knowledge of your collection, then you can’t do that so easily.”
“Eighty percent of our job,” McGowan said, is spent inventorying items in the collection, which was donated to the State Museum in the 1970s. Each item was given a number by its previous owner, though over time the numbers have been lost, leaving McGowan and her colleagues with relatively vague information to match the items with their numbers and descriptions once again.
“Using that number and the records that I found—that the museum had—I’m able to match the two back together,” she said. “So far, I think I’ve gotten about 80-to-90 percent of those.”
McGowan has also spent a significant amount of time researching individual artifacts, many of which have been photographed and posted on the museum’s Facebook page. She also enjoys partaking in “dumpster diving,” which is when she opens up cabinets and boxes at random to investigate their contents.
“I think that’s my favorite part—finding the little treasures that have been lost for so long,” she said, as exemplified by past unexpected discoveries, such as the recent unearthing of a lock of George Washington’s hair.
“It doesn’t have to be as big as George Washington,” she said, “but, I like finding things like that, because they’re unique, and they’re different and they tell a really good story.”
McGowan admits that she is “partial to the clothing, and the textiles,” though her passion for history allows her to be impressed by almost everything. Since she began at the museum in May 2014, she has come across everything from clocks, to furniture, to dresses, quilts, furs, hats, and other accessories, though she is particularly fond of “kitchen gadgets.”
“There are some very kooky little contraptions that [make] you wonder, ‘Why don’t we have this today?’” she said.
As McGowan continues to participate in the museum’s inventorying and CAP efforts, she increases her ever-growing passion for history, which seems to not only benefit her curiosity and career wishes, but also the overall goals of the State Museum. Her rare, intricate knowledge pertaining to fashion history has been an asset for the institution.
“I’ve been helping [the museum] identify what they have and how important or rare it is,” she said. “We’ve been working to improve the housing of these things, because some of them aren’t in the best storage arrangements possible.”
There is still a lot of work to be done on the CAP, McGowan said, because the PHMC has discovered it has tens of thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands, or millions—more items than it initially assumed. Though the museum field is highly competitive, she said that with the right credentials, there are places for individuals with the will and the ability to assist in such efforts.
At SU, the faculty “pushed me to do internships and they knew where I could do them, so they were very instrumental in pointing me in the right direction,” she said.
“I would say, probably the biggest thing is to get as much work experience as possible on your resume,” she said. “It’s definitely important to have experience and to know people.”
The Collection Advancement Project (CAP) began in 2010, and has the distinction of being the largest-ever effort of its kind, not just at the State Museum, but anywhere.
“It's a huge undertaking that has never successfully been implemented anywhere to this scale before,” said McGowan, whose primary focus is in the Community and Domestic Life Collection (CDL), which is state’s largest with approximately 150,000 artifacts, mostly including clothing and appliances.
According to the CAP Abstract, the “initiative will establish better intellectual and physical control and improve access to this nationally significant collection while making related information more accurate, engaging, and widely available to diverse audiences of researchers, the public, Museum visitors, and students of all ages.”
McGowan said the CAP is an effort to match paper records to items contained in storage areas, so that the museum can prove it has a hold on the contents of its collection.
“That’s important because you want to know what you have and what you say you do, because a lot of times people will come to you and say, ‘So-and-so donated this to the museum, and I want to see it. Can you find it for me?’” she said. “And if you don’t have a very good knowledge of your collection, then you can’t do that so easily.”
“Eighty percent of our job,” McGowan said, is spent inventorying items in the collection, which was donated to the State Museum in the 1970s. Each item was given a number by its previous owner, though over time the numbers have been lost, leaving McGowan and her colleagues with relatively vague information to match the items with their numbers and descriptions once again.
“Using that number and the records that I found—that the museum had—I’m able to match the two back together,” she said. “So far, I think I’ve gotten about 80-to-90 percent of those.”
McGowan has also spent a significant amount of time researching individual artifacts, many of which have been photographed and posted on the museum’s Facebook page. She also enjoys partaking in “dumpster diving,” which is when she opens up cabinets and boxes at random to investigate their contents.
“I think that’s my favorite part—finding the little treasures that have been lost for so long,” she said, as exemplified by past unexpected discoveries, such as the recent unearthing of a lock of George Washington’s hair.
“It doesn’t have to be as big as George Washington,” she said, “but, I like finding things like that, because they’re unique, and they’re different and they tell a really good story.”
McGowan admits that she is “partial to the clothing, and the textiles,” though her passion for history allows her to be impressed by almost everything. Since she began at the museum in May 2014, she has come across everything from clocks, to furniture, to dresses, quilts, furs, hats, and other accessories, though she is particularly fond of “kitchen gadgets.”
“There are some very kooky little contraptions that [make] you wonder, ‘Why don’t we have this today?’” she said.
As McGowan continues to participate in the museum’s inventorying and CAP efforts, she increases her ever-growing passion for history, which seems to not only benefit her curiosity and career wishes, but also the overall goals of the State Museum. Her rare, intricate knowledge pertaining to fashion history has been an asset for the institution.
“I’ve been helping [the museum] identify what they have and how important or rare it is,” she said. “We’ve been working to improve the housing of these things, because some of them aren’t in the best storage arrangements possible.”
There is still a lot of work to be done on the CAP, McGowan said, because the PHMC has discovered it has tens of thousands—perhaps hundreds of thousands, or millions—more items than it initially assumed. Though the museum field is highly competitive, she said that with the right credentials, there are places for individuals with the will and the ability to assist in such efforts.
At SU, the faculty “pushed me to do internships and they knew where I could do them, so they were very instrumental in pointing me in the right direction,” she said.
“I would say, probably the biggest thing is to get as much work experience as possible on your resume,” she said. “It’s definitely important to have experience and to know people.”
